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The mid-autumn festival is one of my favourite festivals, it is usually held on the 15th day of the eight month in the Chinese Calendar, which is usually either September or early October. It is one of the most important holidays in the Chinese calendar and traditionally on this day, Chinese families and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon and eat mooncakes!

Now mooncakes, usually round pastries, delicious thick filing usually made from lotus seed paste and surrounded by a thin crust and may contain yolks (if you like them!). I don’t recommend eating them like donuts as they are incredibly rich! So cut them into small wedges and eat them bit by bit with tea or coffee.

There are many different types of mooncakes and I have eaten my fair share of them to know which one I like (and which brand!). Most common is the lotus seed paste which I like, probably most ‘original’ and most luxurious mooncake filing. There is also sweet bean paste, jujube paste or five kernel (which was 5 types of nuts and seeds, and possibly my least favourite!)

The crust, three different types – chewy and has a reddish-brown tone and glossy sheen, probably the most common type. There is also flaky crust which I don’t think I have had, and tender which is similar to shortcrust pastry – yes can be confusing and daunting for first timers!

If you thought that was confusing, now they have ‘contemporary’ style mooncakes with fancier filing like cream cheese, green tea, pandan, tiramisu, DURIAN (my fav!), coffee, and many more. They are also ice cream like mooncakes which are bite size so you can ‘pop’ them in your mouth! The crust varies also, non-baked, snowflakes, glutinous or even jelly.

Now, as you may know, my favourite Uncle is a fantastic baker! He made his own ‘limited edition’ snowflakes mooncake. I was told that the basic snow skin mooncake is the easiest type out there to make and tastes quite delicious. I wouldn’t even dare attempt making them, so when Uncle said he made them, I thought I would post a blog – he makes it sound so easy!!!!!! He used a recipe from Anhs’ food blog.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words? So he has kindly put this photo together.

He made a couple of different sized mooncake, the one below he took – it only had one yolk.

He was kind enough to give me a bigger mooncake with two yolks! It was incredibly smooth and absolutely delicious. Loved the yolk as well. It was hard not demolish half of it in one sitting. Savouring each bite with a cup of tea. Thanks Uncle, it was ‘melt-in-my-mouth’ DELICIOUS!

Hope you got to eat at least one delicious mooncake! I know I did! I look forward to next year’s mooncake edition Uncle!

I love pandan chiffon cake – even from a very young age, I would ask Mum to either make it or buy it! She would usually buy as it was ‘easier’. The softness and the fluffiness and I love the bright green colour! I have tried this cake many times now, a couple of times without a mixer – what was I thinking?

My mixer has been broken for a while now, so when I noticed a ‘spare’ mixer at Mum’s I couldn’t help but ask if I could ‘borrow’ it. I had no doubt that she would say yes, but I had hope she would lend me the newer one.

I have tried making this three times now, and it was indeed third time lucky, I am happier with my third attempt and can say that I probably won’t make it any time soon! I think ‘The Mother’ is a little over eating pandan chiffon cake. However, I can eat it anytime and every day!

I have tried many different recipes, you can find a full step by step on ieatishootipost blog. Very detailed, I had to read it a couple of times to make sure that I didn’t miss a step!

I used Poh Ling Yeow’s recipe (which can be found on ironchefshelli blog) but reduced the sugar and the flour. I tried using the original recipe with 10 eggs and my goodness, overflow and my cake was oversized! I don’t think my cake thin is big enough for 10 eggs and 300g plain flour. Have played around with the recipe, and I’m ‘happy’ with the recipe below.